


In a Name

by RocketRabbits



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Based off of a vague recollection of season 1+2, Character Study, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, I care more about their chsracter than i do the actual plot of the show, Referring to them as both pidge and katie, probably AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 20:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14221332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocketRabbits/pseuds/RocketRabbits
Summary: Not quite Katie Holt, not quite Pidge Gunderson.Does the name make the person, or does the person fill the name?





	In a Name

It isn't Pidge Gunderson that breaks into the Garrison. Not yet, anyway. When Katie sneaks through the hallways during quiet hours memorised from her brother's old schedule, Pidge is a last resort, some stolen clothes in the back of her closet, and a pair of scissors kept in the medicine cupboard. As she creeps into a file room the idea grows ever dimmer in the glow of the computer screens, ever farther away the faster she types, the more firewalls she breaks, the closer she comes until the door creaks open before her-

It's Katie Holt that, with a heavy heart, tells her mother she wants to enroll in the Garrison. It's what Dad and Matt would have wanted for me, she says, and It's Katie Holt that can't meet her mother's eyes, and it's Katie Holt that holds her voice steady. It's Katie that cuts her hair, that wraps her chest, that follows guides and blogs and videos designed to help lower the voice to simulate the effects of testosterone, and it's Pidge Holt that emerges.

Er, Pidge Gunderson.

Pidge Gunderson does just as well as he has to in classes to slide under the radar, and Pidge Gunderson doesn't know who Matt Holt is, no, sir; and he most certainly isn't related. Weird that their civvies are so similar, though. Pidge doesn't make friends. Pidge doesn't make acquaintances. Katie just makes progress. 

Pidge Gunderson didn't ask to be ripped off to space with his obnoxious simulator team, and Katie didn't either- but in space, there's no use for Katie, no use for Pidge. In space, there is only fear, at first, and then.

Then there is Pidge, again. Because it is easier. Because Katie doesn't want the fools from the Garrison to know her. There is Pidge and Pidge and nothing but Pidge, until, early on, there's Shiro. And when there's Shiro, there's Sam, there's Matt, there's the /Holts/, and where there are Holts, there is Katie. Without mom and without disguises, someone new is born. There's Pidge Holt, now. 

That doesn't matter when there's Voltron. When there's Voltron, there's only Voltron. There's only saving the universe, only the Paladins, only the Green Lion, only the Altean princess and her orders and Zarkon on the other side of the metal.

During training, she's Pidge. Pidge is a she, now, just like Katie, and Pidge is a Holt, just like Katie, but Pidge is different, now. Katie is different. Two distinct people with the same goals and personality, same experiences, same fears and dreams -

But it's Pidge Gunderson that went missing from the Garrison, not Pidge or Katie Holt. Nobody sent her mother a messenger, Katie's name and face aren't on missing posters, aren't broadcast on news channels like Sam and Matt had been. Of course a mother knows her daughter, of course Mrs. Holt knows Katie's neutral scowl like she knows Matt's grin and Sam's laugh, but it isn't Katie that's flashed on the screen, and it's Katie that's lost to her, too, now. It's everyone that's lost to her.

Katie tries to stay Katie in space. It's easy to be Pidge when that's what she's used to, when she does meet and greets with oppressed species on this or that planet, even easier when Pidge is bypassed for the green paladin. It is easy to give up when your earthly desires seem so small. It's easy to be ashamed.

At night, though, when she scours the radio signals in the early hours, there's only Katie, wishing for her family to come home.


End file.
